Theodore L. Gessner

Charismatic leaders and destructiveness: An historiometric study

Abstract Previous research has examined the characteristics and behaviors of charismatic leaders in an effort to understand their ability to change organizational members. Charismatic leaders present a vision for an organizations future. The leaders beliefs, motives, and self-concept system influence the vision and act as guides for the behaviors the leader uses in bringing about change in the organization. Unfortunately, leaders are not always interested in effecting change for the purpose of benefitting the organization and its members as a whole; rather, the leader may be more interested in personal outcomes. This study tested a model of personality constructs found to contribute to destructive acts in a real-world sample of charismatic leaders. Benchmarks scales were used to operationalize the constructs such that ratings of the degree to which a leader exhibited behaviors indicative of the constructs could be quantified. A LISREL VI analysis provides support for the model. Practical and methodological implications are discussed.

The looming maladaptive style : Anxiety, danger, and schematic processing

The importance of cognitive styles as psychological antecedents of psychopathology has gained increasing acceptance over the past 2 decades. Although ample research has explored cognitive styles that confer vulnerability to depression, cognitive styles that confer vulnerability to anxiety have received considerably less attention. In the present investigation, we examined the looming maladaptive style (LMS) as a cognitive style that functions as a danger schema to produce specific vulnerability to anxiety, but not to depression. In 4 studies, we examined the psychometric properties of a revised measure of the LMS, its predictive utility, and its effects on threat-related schematic processing. Results provided evidence for the validity of the LMS and indicated that it predicts anxiety and schematic processing of threat over and above the effects of other cognitive appraisals of threat, even in individuals who are currently nonanxious.

Leadership and destructive acts: Individual and situational influences

Abstract Leaders sometimes make decisions that harm organizational members and long-term organizational performance. The intent of the present study was to assess the role of personality and situational influences on destructive interpersonal and organizational decisions. Management majors were asked to complete a battery of personality and ability measures as part of a Regional Sales Manager Assessment Center. Additionally, they were asked to complete a 32-item “in-basket,” with eight items reflecting decisions that would harm others and eight items reflecting decisions that would harm the organization. Systematic manipulations were made in “in-basket” content to manipulate authority norms, feelings of self-efficacy, and psychological distance. It was found that destructive individuals tended to make decisions that harmed the organization when self-efficacy was low. However, they would not necessarily make decisions that harmed others unless actions of this sort were supported by authority. The implications of these findings for leadership and organizational performance are discussed.

Situational influences on destructive acts

Social psychological approaches to destructive behavior have stressed the importance of environmental factors, but, the range of potentially important life events has not been identified. Using a personality-based model of destructiveness, a pool of relevant biodata items were generated. A sample of 285 college students completed the situational-based biodata measure, the CPI, and two standardized integrity screening measures. A factor analysis of the biodata items resulted in seven factors: alienation, nonsupportive family, negative adult models, life stressors, competitive pressures, negative peer group and financial need. In a series of blocked regressions the situational scales produced significant increases in prediction over the personality variables on the measures of integrity, socialization and delinquency. The implications of these findings for selection and research are discussed.

The development of moral beliefs: A retrospective study

The present study tested a model of moral belief development based on Erikson’s (1963) and McAdams’ (1989) theories of personality development. The sequence of moral belief development is beliefs about outcomes, outcome certainty, beliefs about humanity, and social concern. The developmental antecedents of these beliefs were measured using 13 rationally constructed scales based on background data items. The belief and developmental scales were given to a sample of 246 undergraduates. Using a series of hierarchical blocked regressions, we found a pattern among the beliefs that supported a stage or contingent sequence model of belief development. The results suggest that a supportive, conventional and consistent family environment is a major antecedent of beliefs about outcomes and outcome certainty. Adjustment to the demands of adult culture rather than peer culture is the major antecedent of belief about humanity and social concern.

A comparison of self-devaluation and somatic suggestion content in depressive mood manipulation.

The Velten Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP), often used to manipulate depressive mood, has its effectiveness attributed to the self-devaluative content of its statements; this finding supports cognitive theories of depression. Recent research has suggested that somatic content is more important than self-devaluation content in producing depressive mood variations. To study this using the VMIP, a neutral condition and two modified depression conditions were used: Somatic and self-devaluation (N = 302). The results indicate that self-devaluative statements resulted in significantly more depressed affect than neutral Ss, but no more than somatic statements; this latter group, however, did not differ from neutral Ss. The results of the previous research indicating the importance of the somatic suggestion manipulations as having more influence than negative self-evaluative statements is questioned.

The Principle of Additivity and Its Relation to Clinical Decision Making

Clients (N = 178) with varying degrees of organic indicators were administered a psychological battery including the Memory for Designs Test (MFD; Graham & Kendall, 1960) to assess the extent to which joint presence of organic indicators affected the sensitivity of the MFD in identifying organicity. Joint presence failed to add to the discriminability of the MFD, although individual instruments such as the PIAT (Arithmetic) and WAIS-R (PIQ less than VIQ) clearly discriminated across the MFD.

Differential effects on verbal-performance achievement levels on the WAIS-R as a function of progressive error rate on the Memory for Designs Test (MFD)

One hundred seventy-eight subjects participated in a study to measure the degree of selective subtest decline on the WAIS-R as a function of increased error rate on the Memory-for-Designs Test. The data show that there is an initial, significant decline in the verbal knowledge component of the verbal scale as error rate on the MFD progresses. Performance factors are only significantly related to error rate on the MFD when the latter are maximized.

Sex role and dysphoric mood

This study was designed to examine the relation of sex-role type to dysphoric mood and to the manipulation of dysphoric affect. Initially, subjects completed a variety of measures yielding indices of dysphoria, anxiety, and hostility. Androgynous persons reported the least dysphoria, anxiety, and hostility. Subjects from the original sample who volunteered for the second part of the study were randomly assigned to the neutral or depression conditions of the Velten Mood Induction Procedure. Androgynous types again reported the least anxiety and dysphoria in the neutral type situation; however, when exposed to depressive stimuli, they showed the greatest increase in dysphoria. Masculine-typed persons showed virtually no change in mood. These results lend strong support to the association of sex-typing with depression in that the sex types were differentially susceptible to dysphoric mood. However, the results are contrary to the only other reported study of sex role and depression which successfully manipulated affect. Differences in methodology (learned helplessness versus mood induction) and the fact that the previous study forced subjects to lose control and fail may account for the differing results.

Under the golden psi: the franchising of mental health.

M. Brewster-Smith (1968) divided the history of psychiatry into three revolutionary periods. The first was the unshackling of the lunatics and the conception of mental illness. The second revolution was the spread of the dynamic theory of Freud with its emphasis on the one-to-one therapeutic relationship. The third revolution was the community mental health movement with its emphasis on bringing treatment into the community. We are now on the verge of yet another revolution. The new revolution is quiet and its leaders come from within the psychiatric profession. The major feature of this revolution is the binding together of medical authority and social treatment models within a corporate structure. The new movement takes the individually oriented private practitioners and shows them that in union there is profit.